Hope for the Middle East

Gilbertology madness spreads to the United Arab Emirates (where, incidentally, Martin Peretz asserts there's no culture). This comes to me via Dan Steinberg's DC Sports Bog (not a typo), your go-to source for the latest in Arenas anecdotes every day of the week.

Speaking of which, look how crude GilbertArenas.com is. Surely it would be worth his while (or Adidas') to buy the URL and put a real website up there.

Comments

The Arab Emirates reporter needs to do his fact checking. Regarding the game against the Suns where Arenas fullfilled his pledge to score 50 the article states the Wizards lost that game. In fact, they pulled it out in overtime.

Posted by UofAZGrad | January 29, 2007 11:01 AM

I've been to Dubai. He's right.

Posted by Alex | January 29, 2007 11:21 AM

I dunno, there seem to be art galleries.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | January 29, 2007 11:26 AM

Your end-times-jokey-spurious mention of Peretz is sure to earn you entry to Davis family gatherings. "There's no joke that shouldn't be run into the ground" is our family motto.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 29, 2007 12:03 PM

I too am a fan of "that horse is not dead!" (and especially with regard to M. Perfiddy)

Posted by Murph | January 29, 2007 12:48 PM

I lived for 1 and a half years in Dubai, and Marty is wrong about this, as he seems to be about anything involving the Arab world.

Sure, Dubai has its problems, but this is a country in which if you meet an Emirati over 45, you've met someone probably born in a poor country with little modern infrastructure. It has modernized (sometimes mockingly called "hypermodernized" - because OBVIOUSLY that's what's wrong with them - they've done TOO well), and wisely invested limited oil money into building a modern economy. It is clean and safe. Women can dress as they please. Heck, even Israeli diplomats have attended events in Dubai.

Rather than trashing a place like Dubai, Marty should recongize it as an example of the successful modernization of the Middle East.

And as far as culture goes, the Bedouin culture is still very much alive and ubiquitous. It doesn't show up as Operas or other artifacts of Western Civilization, but why would you think it would?

szr, who thinks we would have been lucky to have the Dubai Ports World running our harbors. They could teach a thing or two about efficiency to GE.

Posted by SZR | January 29, 2007 1:39 PM